Nonsense
by siqwithaQ
Summary: Four short scenes from Sabo's life, before and after the "incident." Spoilers for chapter 731 and on.


A/N: Here are some scenes I wrote prompted on my tumblr (link on my profile for those interested). There's another collection of these I'm posting called Sense, which is AceLu focused. Warning: the following contains spoilers for chapters 731 and on.

* * *

**Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain.**

Ace hissed as Sabo rubbed some of the alcohol they had stolen into the cuts on his face. "Ow! Damn it!"

"I told you, Ace," Sabo said with a sigh. "I'm pretty sure this isn't what you're supposed to do with cuts."

"Hey, you heard Dadan. You're supposed to disinfect them with alcohol. That's alcohol, isn't it?"

"It's sake." Sabo held up the bottle. "I just don't think this makes any sense. Why would anyone put sake on cuts?"

"Just shut up and keep disinfecting," Ace grumbled. Sabo shrugged in response and smeared some sake on the cut over Ace's eye. "FUCK! That hurt, you asshole!"

Luffy looked up from the action figure he had found discarded in Grey Terminal last week. He was playing on the other side of the treehouse, having only had bruises and no need of treatment. "What does fuck mean?"

"It's just a nonsense word," Sabo said without looking away from Ace. "But don't use it in public. Adults think it's rude for some reason."

Ace snorted. "That's a lie. Fuck means have sex."

"It does?" asked Sabo, getting a nod. "So earlier you said 'Have sex, that hurt, you asshole'?"

"Oh, shut up."

"What's sex?" Luffy asked.

Ace started to answer, but Sabo cut him off by shoving the bottle of sake into his mouth.

"It's just another nonsense word," Sabo told him with a nervous smile. "Don't use it in public."

* * *

**Malapert - Clever in manners of speech.**

"Garpilla," Luffy said one day, out of the blue.

Ace and Sabo blinked, turning around from the large window of their treehouse to look at their little brother.

"Huh?" they asked together.

"Garpilla," Luffy repeated. "Gorilla. Garp. Garpilla."

Ace and Sabo looked at each other.

"Garpilla?" Ace asked, but his tone said _seriously, Sabo, do you see what I've been trying to tell you about this stupid kid yet, come on, he just said freaking_ Garpilla, _you've got to admit he's an idiot now_.

But Sabo said, "Garpilla," in the considering manner his biological parents would use to taste wine.

"Garpilla!" Luffy said happily, earning a grin from Sabo.

Ace grumbled as he watched his best friend praise the Dimwit for making the World's Stupidest Pun. The Dimwit would surely try to call Garp that to his face the next time they saw him, Ace could tell, and he swore to beat the kid to the punch. Luffy didn't deserve to be punished for honesty.

_Pun_ished.

…

Ace deserved to be punished for _that_.

* * *

**Concilliabule - A secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot.**

Sabo banged his pipe on the table as a makeshift gavel. "Order, order!" he shouted, although no one had been speaking. "Ahem. Welcome to the first ever meeting of the Anti-Lord Cattington club. First, Hack will read the minutes of the last meeting. Hack?"

"There are no minutes, because there was no last meeting," said the fishman.

"Thank you, Hack. Now before we move on to our discussion of how to get rid of Lord Cattington, is there anything else anyone wants to discuss?"

Koala put her hand in the air. "If this meeting is _anti_-Cattington, why is Lord Cattington in attendance?" Lord Cattington meowed in agreement.

"…Because you need at least four people to make a club," Sabo said, looking down at his shoes.

"You mean if it weren't for Lord Cattington, we wouldn't be able to have an anti-Cattington club?" Koala asked.

"If it weren't for Lord Cattington, we wouldn't _need_ an anti-Cattington club," Hack pointed out.

"Exactly!" said Sabo.

"I'm not sure why we need an anti-Cattington club in the first place," she said, reaching over to scratch Lord Cattington on the top of his head. The cat, for some inexplicable reason, did not try to scratch her. "He's not that bad."

"You only say that because he likes you best," Sabo grumbled. Hack coughed in indirect agreement. "And _you_ don't always have to dive into freezing cold waters when he decides to take a salted bath."

"And he never thinks _you_ would make a good addition to his tuna dinner," Hack added, earning a nod from Sabo.

"Is that settled?" asked Sabo. Koala huffed but said nothing. "Well then, if there are no other points of contention, we'll move on. Now, any ideas how to get rid of Lord Cattington? Because I was thinking dynamite…"

* * *

**Kainotophobia – The fear of change.**

It was one of his free mornings when Sabo finally realised his hair was too long.

It really wasn't his fault he kept forgetting to cut it; Dragon kept him busy around ninety-two percent of his time. And honestly, he had adjusted to getting on around it. But, when he woke up with his entire vision covered in strands of yellow that fell to his abdomen, it was really time to get rid of it.

This was always the way it happened. He would forget to cut his hair for up to a couple of years, then remember to chop it off if it got in his way while he had downtime. The little wigmaker family Dragon employed adored him — he had caught them giving his hair loving looks as it grew past his shoulders, and sometimes Sabo swore the small one held a ruler to his head when he wasn't looking. They knew he was going to donate it all to them when he had his annual-ish hair cutting.

Sabo pulled some clothes on and headed out of his room towards the men's washroom. To his surprise, Koala was waiting outside it for him. She held a pair of barber's scissors.

"You read my mind," he said, reaching out for the scissors. She pulled them away. "Er… Can I have the—"

"No," Koala interrupted. "No, you may not. I am really sick of your terrible hair cuts, so I've taken it upon myself to learn a bit of barbering from the wigmakers."

"My haircuts aren't that bad."

"You have no idea what you're doing with a pair of scissors. You might as well shave your head for all the good it does you."

Sabo sighed. "You're really going to insist on cutting my hair, aren't you?"

"You have no idea," Koala said, grinning, and grabbed his arm to drag him back to his own bedroom. Sabo chose not to bring up that he actually did have to pee.

When they got there, she sat him down in front of the mirror and started cutting. Sabo was pretty sure barbering did not work that way, but Koala knew more than him, apparently. She didn't seem to be going for anything fancy, but she was making it all about the same length, which was more than he could do.

"There," she said finally. "Not perfect, but good for a first time, don't you think?"

Sabo blinked when he saw himself in the reflection. That hair…

His eyes strayed over to the wall, where both his brothers' bounty posters hung, despite one being two years deceased already and the other missing and believed dead. "I… kind of look like Ace…"

Koala instantly looked concerned. "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. I didn't realise…"

"No, it's alright," he said, twisted one of his newly short locks around a finger. "It'll grow out again soon anyway."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "Well if you're gonna be like that, what was the point of cutting it in the first place?"

Sabo laughed. As they headed down to the main area together, Koala still trying to argue pointlessly, he was glad, for once, that he never thought about his hair. He couldn't imagine how he would feel if he were always thinking about who this new style made him resemble.


End file.
